Learn Italian: Prima della partenza, saremo scesi al binario. - Before the departure, we will have gone down to the platform.

The main verb is scendere (to go down), which is a verb of motion. In compound tenses like the future perfect, verbs of motion take essere (to be) as their helping verb. Therefore, we use the future tense of essere, which is saremo, rather than avere.

Why does the past participle scesi end in an -i instead of an -o?

Whenever a compound tense uses essere as the helping verb, the past participle has to agree with the subject in gender and number. The subject here is 'we' (implied by the ending of saremo), which is plural. Therefore, the base form sceso changes to the plural scesi (or scese for an all-female group).

Why is it Prima della partenza and not just Prima la partenza?

When the word prima (before) is followed by a noun, it must be paired with the preposition di. Here, di combines with the feminine singular article la (from la partenza) to form the combined word della.

Does scendere only mean to 'go down'?